I am the essence of overconfidence! I am speculation, adventure; the spirit of pursuit; the stag howling for its winsome yet anonymous mate. I am the love call of evolution; the perfume and color of the flowers as they offer their pollen to the gentle buzz of the bees.
I am sex itself, gentlemen. I am life. I am appetite!

Thursday, July 28, 2005

The Disclaimer Blog.

It is always a good idea to put a disclaimer before starting to write blogs that counsel on applying for MBA/MA/Jobs. So I write a blog exclusively for this disclaimer and I intend to put the disclaimer link on the top right hand panel of this blog so that everybody can see it. This blog just contains a medium-size disclaimer so if you aren't interested in disclaimers don't read further. But then again if you are bored reading the same old cliched fine-print stuff then this disclaimer may be 'slightly' interesting :-).

Do I have Copyright?

I have all sorts of copy rights on every idea/thought/quote/expression on this blog. That's the first thing you learn before becoming the MBA variety. As they say "Own what you really own.. son!". Actually nobody said it. I just made it up. So if you are going to use this line, you have to pay me money. But seriously, plagiarism is bad, So is using stuff without crediting.

Whats in a Name?

Hawkeye is a character from a T.V Series called M.A.S.H. I am a huge fan of M.A.S.H. A black-comedy T.V series that ran from 1972 to 1983. I have seen each episode of M.A.S.H around 25 times. I think M.A.S.H has around 250 episodes. I started watching M.A.S.H in 1993 and have been watching it for more than a decade. The lead character in M.A.S.H was called Dr.Benjamin Franklin Pierce, he was nicknamed 'hawkeye' by his father because of a character called hawkeyein The Last of the Mohicans. I have not seen/read "Last of the Mohicans". So I do not know anything about the 'real' Hawkeye. I feel, I connect with the 'hawkeye' in M.A.S.H at many levels (not the smugness traits but other traits). Which is why the url and now my display name is 'Hawkeye'. Oh! What did you say? Wouldn't this name change cause a confusion among other bloggers? Yes! it would. But when I myself am constantly confused about my own identity why shouldn't you be?

Lightning Strikes Everyday?

It might be three nonsensical words uttered by a madcap blogger to you. But to me its the governing fact of my life. Something which no reader can understand and something which I have to live with. I created this blogger account in 20 minutes. For 19 minutes and 59 seconds, I spent time writing my profile and groping around other stuff needed to maintain a blog. It took me a second to fill the 'Title' section of my blog. For a person to say 'I am the unluckiest man in the world' is easy. For person who does not believe in luck to say so is complex and dark. For a person who is aware of the philosophy of self-fulfilling prophecies to say so is extremely convoluted, complicated, confusing and fool-hardy, which is exactly the kind of person I am. People say lightning never strikes a man twice in the same place. The probability of lightning striking the same place twice times the probability of the same man being there again is already minuscule. However, for that to happen to the same person several hundred times reduces the probability of such an event happening to one person over the number of people who have ever lived on earth. I am that one person. I epitomize Murphy's law. I should be researched, written about and my stories archived for the rest of mankind to awe at. On one hand a person who believes so strongly that he is jinxed can hardly be called an optimist but on the other hand to survive the kind of odds that I am bestowed with and still get up everyday morning thinking something good will happen to me, one needs to draw from enormous reserves of optimism. To sum up, any succession of ill-fated events that you would think can never happen or makes you go 'nah! maybe one or two might happen, not all. not all to one person' - you can assume that it has happened to me several times. But I still exist. Somehow.

Praise and References for this title

- At the beginning of the MBA program, I remarked to a person who later on went on to become on of my closest friends that I was jinxed beyond belief. He laughed in my face and said that I shouldn't be such a pessimist. I told him that it had nothing to do with 'isms' and that I was simply stating a fact of life. He just rolled his eyes and thought I was a weirdo. At the end of the two year program as we were driving madly to the airport to catch the flight in the last minute, he said to my brother 'do you know that Murphy's law was created for your brother'.

- A reader of my blog, who also knows me personally said only recently 'I never believed you when I read your blog. Now I can see where lightning strikes comes from. This (incident) has never happened before and its happening to you. It is so weird'

1) I consider myself to be an essayist. If you don't understand what the word means - I write long blog posts. That's because I love writing them. I love writing long posts because I love reading long posts. Reading for entertainment is such good time pass. Think of this as a big time pass newspaper article that you would read over a cup of coffee.

2) I am not here to give you an executive summary of what I want to say. You are no executive. Even if you are, I don't really care. I don't write to give you a brief synopsis or a succinct post. Just because you are retarded and can't digest anything longer than 4 sentences, does not give you the right to blame the author. That you have an 8-bit register, which constantly overflows - for a brain, is your fault. Not mine. If you are grown-up, have more than 2 brain cells and can read, you ought to be able to read longer documents. Most of the good writers that I have read don't try to be succinct. They try to write well. If you are busy and have no time, you shouldn't be wasting whatever little time you have, reading arbitrary blogs that don't provide you any useful information (like this one).

3) I don't have a lot of respect for people who claim that they aren't good readers. People who start skimming things after the 4-sentence limit have been crossed are retards. Educated people should be able to read well. Engineers, especially those who might have to read, review, edit & write long detail-oriented documents shouldn't claim that they can't read.

4) This blog does not give out privileged information concerning any organization/institution I work/worked. In fact I try hard not to mention anything related to any place I have worked in the past or one that I'll work in the future. I will simply not blog about any topic, which I feel can even be remotely considered as "conflict of interest" or violates "Confidential information" that I may possess. I also do not believe anything in this blog space will even remotely fall in any of these previously-mentioned categories. Anything that appears here is something that can typically appear in a book. I am trying to do stuff which may benefit others. That's the bottom line.

5) The blog will center around open-space public domain issues/situations/concepts like applying for higher studies and vying for corporate jobs. This is a huge space in which a lot of strong opinions can be expressed.

6) All these opinions are mine. Obviously! This is my blog. Somebody else's opinion will be in somebody else's blog. For a reader who is 20 years or older, it should be obvious to him/her if some part of my blogs are/is not relevant to him/her. I don't feel the need to say in every blog insipid things like "All this is IMHO and take this advice with a pinch of salt/pepper/cucumber/tamarind etc". In fact even this disclaimer itself is a waste of space.

7) This blog talks about my experiences and things I learned in the process. This is also a prescriptive blog. Not all things suggested/mentioned in this blog has been experienced/done directly by me. Some ( a very few) are things I believe I should have done and didn't. I am writing these blogs because I believe it will work for other people. I hate putting disclaimers which say "It may not work for everybody", when I am specifically trying to write something for others. It is purely up to you to determine whether the suggestions offered here fits with your individual requirements. If you are a normal garden variety engineer from a regular Indian college, most probably things in this blog will fit you.

8) I also won't force myself to be politically correct and in the process push myself into a corner where I can't express any opinion at all. If I have to take a stand on something I won't wimp around saying "I dunno..my thighs feel weak" etc. I'll just take a stand on what I believe.

9) Again that does not mean I'll leak out company secrets and any confidential information I know. I am not a controversy monger. I respect corporate and institutional laws and won't break them.

10) In the public domain space that is outside/mutually-exclusive of these legal stuff, I like people who stick up to what they believe even if they fail at a later stage. I do not like people who don't say anything concrete because they don't want to be looked upon as people who are wrong/failures or worse so that they can avoid getting into a controversy (again this with things in the public domain). These people are boring and a waste of space. For example many Indian cricket commentators like MohinderAmarnath will say "anything can happen. Cricket is a funny game". When India is chasing a target of 369 and is now 28/9 in 49.5 overs. Funnily enough, they are being politically correct. To me they are also stupid and I really hate such people. At the same time I won't "always" do a Kris Srikkanth and say "India has lost. The match is over", when we are 30/3 and Tendulkar, Dravid and Sehwag have gone back to the pavilion. Oh! I do think the match is lost, but I'll wait for a few more overs or one more wicket before saying that. But I have to say in this spectrum I am more 'Cheeka' than 'Jimmy'.

11) Oh! and for god's sake dont come running with one exception and claim that what I wrote isn't what happens. That your 3rd uncle's son managed a Wharton admit with a 430 GMAT is good, but it doesnt mean anything. Almost everything I say will have exceptions. Learn to distinguish exception Vs norm using the 80-20 rule. Don't complicate yourself saying 'you cant say that for sure its all situation dependent'. Yes! there are also many situation dependent scenarios. So wherever relevant, I'll try and say its situation-dependent.

12) What I am blogging about is something that has worked/works. This is intended to inspire 'other people'. It is meant for ordinary people like us. If you have a sense of humor and you think it talks about extra-ordinary things then it is meant to inspire ordinary people to do outside-the-ordinary stuff. This is a collection of my experiences/mistakes and other people's experiences/mistakes. If it works for me and people whom I knew, then it must obviously work for a lot of people. I have tried to present it in a way that will help a big majority of people benefit from my experiences.

13) If you followed some ideas in this blog and still didn't go anywhere, it only means you screwed up somewhere. Find out where you screwed up, instead of coming here wailing like a baby saying "i failed because your theory did not work". That only makes you a Loser and a sore one at that.

14) Off-late, I hate putting his/her and she/he. I'll just put one of 'he' or 'she'. Most probably it will be 'he'. Since many of you have obviously finished 8th standard Biology, you know what your gender is. Please understand such references to mean your own gender, wherever applicable.

15) There are a lot of people who have done MBA and who are writing blogs. Even more people, who have done an M.S/working, are writing blogs. Their opinions/contradictions/criticisms/love/money are welcome. As long as they realize there is a more than one way to slice a cake/ nail a cat/ cook sambar rice.

16) If I have contradicted myself anywhere or said things in an inconsistent fashion in my blog. Please point it out to me. There is a good chance I may not alter any of my past statements. But I'd like to know where I contradict myself. I have long since reconciled to a self-contradictory life. I do think most other people contradict themselves many times over, even if they claim otherwise. We'll have to live with everything.

17) I make a lot of spelling mistakes. I am very poor in 'ie' and 'ei' related things. Please point them to me. I'd like to change.

18) I hate songs in movies. Although I review movies that has songs, and may even appreciate song-picturization, I still think songs shouldn't be part of movies. I don't think songs-in-movies have anything to do with Indian tradition and I'd like to see movies without songs in the future. I used to believe in the 'sneezing' superstition among the list of superstitions blogged delightfully well here.

19) The quote above (the one about advertisements under "Lightning Strikes Everyday") is from the TV Series M*A*S*H. MASH is my all-time favorite TV Series. I have watched each episode of MASH around 20 times. Hawkeye in MASH is a character I am crazy about. His dialogs resonate with my views like crazy. If I don't change this disclaimer to reflect a new source but just delete this point, when stuff under the title changes, please assume it to be my own stuff.

20) Most of the posts don't have a point, a moral or a message. If I unintentionally make a point or write something like 'the point is' - that post maybe an exception.

Before we start -- a little terminology lesson.

1) Graduate Studies in the U.S is Post-Graduate Studies in India. While in India a person who has completed his Bachelors degree is called a Graduate in the U.S he is just a person with an Under Graduate degree.And while in India a Masters level degree is called Post-Graduate degree, in the U.S its just a Graduate degree. Wokay?!

2) oh! almost forgot. While in India you stop going to a school after XIIth Grade (High School), In the U.S you are going to a school as long as you are studying (even if you are doing a Ph.D). Any place which offers education can be called as a school in the U.S. Whereas in India once you throw away your uniform and finish high school you start going to college and not school. In all the blogs concerning education the terminology that will be used will be U.S terminology.

have loads of time today. i was ordered not to sleep in the afternoons. guess i boasted too much and lost the golden-egg-laying goose.

anyway. i am kind of html retarded and usually take a lot of time coming up with small changes related to my blog template/sidebar. in a dinosaur like fashion i change the template/sidebar once every 'n' months or so.

but what you say should be possible. try and search for 'scroll bars on side bar' in google. i will do the same and let u know if i find anything useful. it will help me too. right now i have solved the problem by putting drop down menus for all the links i wanted on the sidebar.. seems kind of economical.

u can try the same. but i guess u are trying to solve the width problem and not the length one. i solved the width problem by cutting short the sentences :-(

I am pleasantly surprised to meet a blogger who is a M.A.S.H. fan named himself after the doc. Anyway, that was a fundu plan you put together. I am an MBA aspirant to aiming for 2007. Must catch up sometime.

This is the first time I have ever read a disclaimer right to the end.

Remembering all the disclaimers and EULAs that i have come across while installing softwares ( Pirated, of course!! Original softwares for a average indian with a not-even-average comp is a costly commodity.. :) ), I have never even intended to glance through them...

am probably a few months too late to post a comment...but after reading your disclaimer i must say,i am enthralled..this is the first time i have read a disclaimer right through the ned and was nothing short of amused at your observations of cricket in point 10...limbadahaving finished high school just recently,to be precise 4 months and 2 days back,i have been through a million mind changes regarding what to take up as a career...after reading your blog,which i found while searching for a recipe for dhabeli...i have decided to go back to my pasion for writing!!hence,thanks to you i have found the one thing that i would like to dutifully employ my life after...but i still haven;t found that recipe for dhabeli:P:Ptc...n keep writing

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About Me

Hawkeye somehow managed to get educated, switch careers from engineering to business and secure gainful employment. He got employed because he failed to achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a house husband. He does not believe in luck but thinks he is the most unluckiest man in the world (read disclaimer). Such self-contradictory thoughts continue to separate the author from reality. He claims he can 'do humor' because he cant be taken seriously.Hawkeye is a nomad, a wanderer who has studied in more schools and lived in more places than he cares to remember. He has travelled to many many states within India and has seen almost all the important vacation spots. He constantly tries to bring in "I went to switzerland for my honeymoon" in unrelated conversations (like this one) and hopes to visit all the other countries in Europe. Loves to visit and learn historical information about Indian Temples. He is ramping up on the ancient metaphysical philosphy called Vishishta-Advaitha ( Qualified Non-Dualism) and loves to talk about it with anybody who claims to be an expert.